


I See Fire

by Bofur1, kili99



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Adoption, Developing Friendships, F/M, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Bofur1, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kili99/pseuds/kili99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of a Half-Elven girl raised by Dwarves. Her origins are shrouded in mystery, her training is by many, and her love is undying. Meet Arlina Vaennziraz, the beautiful flame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> hey all, kili99 here. I tend to have a lot of story ideas, but when it comes to actually writing them I lose something. So, after writing this Prologue, I am handing over the story to Bofur1, because I know she will do an awesome job. Enjoy!

 The night was cool and quiet. The moon was full and illuminated a small village that slept below it. No one walked about or made a sound. All that stirred was a slight autumn breeze that rustled leaves scattered about the streets. 

The tranquility was abruptly shattered by a scream, followed by the telltale howl of a Warg.  Lights blazed to life then in every house, boots were shoved on, arms were taken up. Within moments, Dwarves flooded out of their doors, looking for the source of the cry. They were lucky for the shine of the moon; it gave them just enough light for an advantage. 

"There!" a voice called out, and the townsfolk hurried over to the edge of the main road where a dwarf woman stood pointing. The town sat above a valley clearing, which at the moment flickered with torches along the far edge.

"How many?" a deep voice penetrated the crowd. The dwarves turned to it, faces set and weapons ready. The voice came from a handsome Dwarf, with dark hair and a regal bearing. Clearly the leader, as could be told by the others' obvious respect for him.

"S'hard to tell from here, but it looks to be about twenty, thirty at most." said a gravelly toned Dwarf. He was exceptionally tall for his kind, and sported a bald, tattooed head. "We can easily take them out. What I want to know is, who screamed?"

The deep voiced Dwarf's eyes darkened. "Let's go find out, shall we? Dwalin, you come with me, as well as Bifur and Krellr. I want three guards stationed on each side of the settlement perimeter. The rest of you may return to your homes. We will convene in the morning to discuss whatever happens." He turned back to the men going with him and they took off into the night, towards the torches. 

As they deftly raced across the field, another scream rang out. "Thorin!" cried the young, red haired Dwarf. "That was a woman!"

"I know, Krellr, I'm not deaf!" Thorin hissed. 

They were close enough now to hear the snarls and yips of the Orc pack. At Thorin's motion, the four hunters split up to surround the filthy creatures. 

Within the Orcs' own circle was a young woman clutching a large bundle in her arms. Her tawny hair was a mess and her face was covered in dirt and grime. The Orcs kept taunting her, allowing their two Wargs to snap within inches of her face. She was breathing hard, terrified. The whole thing was disgusting and despicable. But what else is to be expected of Orcs?

Thorin rose from the cover of the grass and gave the signal. He and the three other Dwarves charged with a unified yell, catching the Orcs off guard. They screeched and tried to run, but they were all cut down within minutes.

Dwalin yanked his axe out of the last one and wiped it on the grass before returning it to the holster on his back. It was Bifur who first remembered the woman, spinning around when he heard a small whimper. "Oh no," he whispered. She was lying on the ground, an arrow sprouting from her chest. He rushed to her, calling for the others. 

Thorin came quickly and knelt by her side. Dwalin and Krellr stood nearby, looking on grimly. The dying woman tried to speak but Thorin took her hand. "Hush now," he said gently. "It'll be alright. Just lie still, don't talk." He smiled sadly at the woman. He began to say something else, but was cut off by Bifur, who drew in a sharp breath. 

"Thorin." He said tensely. Thorin followed his gaze and his eyes rested on the bundle he had seen the woman holding earlier. His eyes widened when he saw the blanket move and a tiny hand reach out to the stars. He stood abruptly and went over to it. He picked it up and beheld the Man infant in the starlight. Her eyes were bright and she cooed as she reached for his face. 

He adjusted his hold on the babe and went back to the woman. She weakly raised her hand and a single tear fell from her dimming eyes. The child whimpered as her mother shakily stroked her cheek. She then looked to Thorin and whispered almost inaudibly, "Thank you... I-" She coughed violently, shuddered and then fell limp against Bifur, who had been holding her slightly upright. He laid her down on the ground and looked up with a white face, matched to Thorin's. Behind them, the horizon was lightening, the sky turning a lavender gray. 

"What do we do?" Bifur asked. 

Thorin ran his free hand through his midnight brown hair, eyes darting back and forth as he tried to process the situation. Then the baby started to cry. "Shh, sh-sh-shh," he tried to calm her down. Dawn had now broken and the first of the sun's rays shone upon the town on the hill. Grimly Thorin looked to the others.

"Do you happen to know anyone who's interested in adoption?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently no one was interested. Thorin and Dwalin went to every door of every home, but no one wanted the little girl.

"She's too young; I can't handle that."

"There's a reason I didn't get married!"

"A child of _Man_? Sorry, mate, ain't happenin'."

"I don't understand!" Thorin exclaimed, kicking a chair in his frustration. Dís pursed her lips at his antics, but didn't say anything. Thorin paced the length of the dining table, Dís leaned against the stove and Dwalin sat at the table with the baby in his arms. "Why will no one take her?! There's nothing wrong with her!"

Dís sighed in exasperation. "Brother, they're thinking of the future. How do you explain to a little girl why she grows faster than her friends, why she looks different, where she came from? It's not a burden most people have the courage to bear."

"Alright, but Dís, what are we going to with her? We don't even know her name."

"Arlina," Dwalin supplied quietly. Thorin and Dís looked at him, confused. "Her name is Arlina. It's sewn onto the blanket." 

"Okay," Thorin said. "We know her name. That doesn't much help our situation." He stood frowning at the ground. "We can send her to a Man town. Let her own kind figure out what to do with her."

"The nearest Man settlement is at least a two days ride away. She shouldn't be put through that," Dís said imploringly.

"She's been through worse, obviously. And what else is there to do? It's the only way."

"Not the only way." Dwalin said, surprising the two siblings. He seemed to be steeling himself for what he was about to say. "I'll take her."

Thorin stared at his friend, openmouthed and speechless. Dís gaped at him as if he had lost his mind. "What?!" she (most certainly unintentionally) squeaked. 

"Come on, it won't be too hard. And think about it, if I train her, she can be the finest warrior the race of Man will ever see." Arlina babbled and played with Dwalin's beard, causing him to smile.

Thorin looked from Dwalin to Dís, then back to Dwalin again. "Are you sure about this?"

Dwalin nodded. "Aye."

Thorin exhaled and walked over to the baby. He held her up and said, "Well then Arlina, welcome to Hestrán."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hestrán: Stallion River; the name of the town


	2. Chapter 2

When Dwalin had said he was going to care for the motherless child, he hadn’t thought much as to how long it would take—or how invested he and his kin would become. Thorin seemed suspicious of the baby at first, as though wondering what influence it… _she_ had over Dwalin to make him accept her, but it wasn’t long before Dís slapped her brother upside the head and told him that an infant was an infant.

“The reason why Dwalin took her,” she stated surely, “is that he isn’t callous enough to leave her on her own.”

There were other reasons Dwalin had taken her, such as maintaining his honor, but he let Dís and the others maintain that her words had been his first reason.

He also hadn’t thought beforehand about Balin’s reaction. His brother had stayed wide-eyed and speechless for several minutes, something Dwalin didn’t often see from him, until at last he had stood from his armchair and tentatively reached for Arlina. Once she was in his arms, his face softened slightly, but Dwalin could tell from his eyes that he was still troubled.

“You’re a warrior, brother,” Balin had said at last, breaking the silence. “Will you have the time you need to care for the lass?”

“I have time enough for Fíli and Kíli,” Dwalin huffed. “I can make time for a child who will grow twice as fast, can’t I?”

Make time he did—fifteen years’ time. Those years were full of whispers of surprise and concern, derision and even pity, but that only made Dwalin all the more determined to keep Arlina and raise her properly. Fifteen years was a mere blink in the eyes of a Dwarf, but as a human, Arlina shot up like a tree in fresh soil.

By the time Fíli and Kíli started wearing proper tunics and breeches instead of jumpers, Arlina was ready to hand her borrowed clothing down to them in favor of dresses. It wasn’t long, however, before she outgrew Dís’ size and they were forced to find a tailor among their people who wouldn’t mind sewing dresses of a taller size. To the surprise of many, Arlina wasn’t too bothered by how tall she was getting.

“I’m nearly as tall as Papa,” she reminded them proudly. Dwalin would smile a little and ruffle her silky hair, but behind it he was remembering just how hard it had been when he was young, visiting this very same tailor and being compared with his shorter mother and brother.

When Fíli and Kíli picked up their first knives, Arlina was already practicing with short swords. Once she saw her adoptive cousins’ sulking faces, she tried to appease them by advising them on their knife techniques, but Dwalin put a stop to that quickly.

“Don’t let them guilt you into helping,” he warned, drawing a short sword of his own for her to face. “They need to learn on their own.” Balin, standing on the sidelines, raised his eyebrows, and Dwalin made a face at him in return. Yes, he answered the unasked question, of course he remembered begging for Balin’s help when he was Kíli’s age and _no_ , he wasn’t going to let Kíli do the same with Lina. Kíli was a prince and Lina…she wasn’t even of their race. She was being trained in Dwarven techniques, but her body was different and didn’t take to it the same way as a Dwarfling did. Thorin had already made it clear to Dwalin that he was just fine with Lina being trained, but not with his nephews.

Other than that, Arlina and the boys were thick as thieves and closer. Oftentimes the girl could be found carrying the Dwarflings on her back, wincing good-naturedly as they pulled on her hair and eventually tidying up her braids at the same time she rewove theirs. Dwalin and Balin watched and appreciated her help with the lads, but all they could think of was the time when she had wondered why she didn’t have a beard growing in to look like Lady Dís’. They hadn’t spared her the truth, that she was of a different race, but they had told her gently. Ever so gently.

When Fíli and Kíli were still playing with carvings Bifur gave them, Arlina reached the dreaded phase. Dwalin couldn’t forget his dismay when she had asked to visit the Menfolk, evading his questions when he wanted to know why. Eventually it was pried out of her, with childish giggling, that a boy her age wanted to give her some flowers he had bought.

Dwalin wondered what Mannish girl had received those flowers in the end; it _wasn’t_ Lina, who was busy sulking in her room at her adad’s unfairness.

At last, Fíli and Kíli seemed to catch up a bit to Arlina, in maturity if not in age. They had, in fact, always been older than their years, so Dwalin earned a bit of relief when his adoptive daughter finally stuck to her cousins’ sides instead of constantly wondering about the ways of Man. She grew close with the lads and they with her. Those years were relatively peaceful, until Fíli and Kíli’s other friends took to calling her “Weed”, due to how quickly she had sprung up to reach her awkward height.

Dwalin was fully prepared to menace the children into submission. Arlina insisted that it didn’t bother her, that it was just immaturity on their part, but it was clear now that she was old enough to understand the difference between Menfolk and Dwarves. She was one and they were another; she and Dwalin were already standing eye to eye now, leaving Balin, Thorin, and the others behind, and that was enough to make her uncomfortable.

Eventually she asked the question Dwalin had been dreading since he had first taken her in:

“Where did I really come from?”

He stalled as long as he possibly could before telling her about her mother’s fate.

“And…who was my father?”

Though his face remained unchanged, Dwalin felt his heart hurt at the words—these from the same mouth that had always called _him_ “Father”…

“I don’t know,” was all he could say in the end. Arlina didn’t seem satisfied with that, but it was the only answer she could get.

One evening, she was there, having seemingly forgotten about the question of her origin and her parenthood. She laughed with Fíli and Kíli, gossiped with Dís, listened to Balin’s stories…and then Dwalin turned around and she was gone, a phantom on the wind.

They scoured Hestrán with Dwalin in the lead, bellowing her name until his fellow searchers were near-deaf, but around dawn—a morning much too like the one when she had first come to him—Balin placed a cold hand on Dwalin’s arm. Dwalin tried to jerk away, but his brother had a grip that could easily become a vice and it pulled on him stubbornly until he was forced to turn, easing inch by inch into a touch of their foreheads.

“I’m sorry, brother,” Balin murmured. Dwalin couldn’t say anything around the lump in his throat; he simply shook his head and clenched his hands around Balin’s shoulders all the tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Bofur1 here!  
> This chapter is long, long, _long_ overdue, but I've clearly been on a Transformers kick for a couple of years now and other than a few stories in late 2015, it's been hard for Hobbity inspiration to bleed through. Some of it finally kicked in again and here is the result! Hopefully more will come to me soon. Enjoy!


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